Other Side of the Stair, pp. 279-280

Opening Remarks
There is another route as well that climbs from the mind towards the House of Truth.

Mighty kingdoms of the deathless Flame
On the other side of the eternal stairs
The mighty kingdoms of the deathless Flame
Aspired to reach the Being’s absolutes.

On the other side of the stairs there are mighty kingdoms of the deathless Flame. These kingdoms too aspired to reach the absolute Truths that are held in the Being as the many facets and powers of the One.

Lonely mounts up the deathless Flame
Out of the sorrow and darkness of the world,
Out of the depths where life and thought are tombed,
Lonely mounts up to heaven the deathless Flame.

This is the other route that the soul, the deathless Flame within us can take. It can rise through the power of its lonely aspiration out of the sorrow and darkness of this world in which our life and mind are entrenched.

House of sacrifice
In a veiled Nature’s hallowed secrecies
It burns for ever on the altar Mind,
Its priests the souls of dedicated gods,
Humanity its house of sacrifice.

Hidden behind the surface nature this sacred Flame burns upon the altar of Mind. Our humanity is the house of sacrifice. It is assisted in this inner yagna (sacrifice) by the gods, the luminous powers working in man to uplift his soul.

Once kindled it never dies
Once kindled, never can its flamings cease.

This is the deathless flame in man, the flame of aspiration that once kindled can never burn out.

A fire along the mystic paths
A fire along the mystic paths of earth,
It rises through the mortal’s hemisphere,
Till borne by runners of the Day and Dusk
It enters the occult eternal Light
And clambers whitening to the invisible Throne.

It climbs as a fire growing upwards to Heaven through mystic paths concealed within earth-nature. It rises upwards through the day and night, – the powers of light and the powers of dusk both nourishing it until it enters the Supramental Truth.

Ascending Force
Its worlds are steps of an ascending Force:
A dream of giant contours, titan lines,
Homes of unfallen and illumined Might,
Heavens of unchanging Good pure and unborn,
Heights of the grandeur of Truth’s ageless ray,
As in a symbol sky they start to view
And call our souls into a vaster air.

In this ascension one discovers worlds of tapasya, of ascending Force climbing through titan lines and giant contours where there are homes of the unfallen mighty gods. Here we encounter high heavens of unborn Good and grandeur and Truth. A vast impersonality carries us through the skies of these realms.

Gold infinite’s apocalypse
On their summits they bear up the sleepless Flame;
Dreaming of a mysterious Beyond,
Transcendent of the paths of Fate and Time,
They point above themselves with index peaks
Through a pale-sapphire ether of god-mind
Towards some gold Infinite’s apocalypse.

These worlds too eventually enter the Supermind that transcends Fate and time. They carry the soul upwards pointing towards index peaks that are like absolute heights of each great / principle Idea born in the high Mind realms and climbing towards the supramental Infinite.

Closing Remarks
This is the other path that man can take, the path of arduous tapasya towards the High Beyond.